They Almost Always Come Home

by Cynthia Ruchti

  I’m probably blacklisted from any future answers to prayer

  because I’m not attending the special prayer service for my hus- band. I can’t do it.

  All those naïve members of the congregation praying for

  Greg’s return? Won’t they blush if it turns out he’s sharing a stateroom on a Mediterranean cruise with a woman he met on the Internet?

  And that in order to bankroll his tryst he sold our Jeep to a

  Canadian somehow distantly related to Peter Jennings?

  That should make an interesting bulletin announcement

  next Sunday.

  Save your prayers for the funeral, folks. Either way, there’s

  going to be a funeral.

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  A nd evening and morning were the fourth day.

  I know by the rhythm of the knocks that Frank is at my back door. No standard tap-tap-tap for him. Or even a lighthearted tap-tap-tuh-tap-tap . . . tap . . . tap. No, Frank announces his arrival with something that sounds like a cavalry bugle cry right before the word, “Charge!”

  “Door’s open, Frank.” I don’t move from my place at the sink. Dishes and laundry aren’t honoring the fact that Greg’s gone. Why can’t they hold a moratorium on household chores out of respect for the man who paid for them? Every time I look out the window, the lawn tugs at my sleeve. A little atten- tion here? How rude. Brent offered to mow it for me. Remind me again why I turned him down?

  I sent Jen home to tuck her girls into bed last night. They need her. A little girl needs her mama. I’m living proof. Jen probably sang to them, read to them, brushed their hair and their My Little Ponies’ manes. She snuggled their warm bod- ies into hers and assured them of her love. She prayed with and for them and promised to protect them always. I should warn her not to make promises that might prove impossible to keep.

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  Jen returned around ten after receiving Brent’s blessing to

  stay as long as needed. Brent’s parents are coming to take over childcare for the duration so Brent can get back to work. To how many people will I be indebted when this is over?

  Frank knows better than to ask if there’s any word. We

  called him about the Jeep and talking to the imposter. I appre- ciate his silence on that subject. He nods to Jen, who’s reentered the kitchen from returning pre-sympathy phone calls in Greg’s office.

  “What does Greg usually keep on that middle shelf above

  his computer?” she asks after wiggling her fingers at Frank as a symbol of greeting and solidarity.

  “Middle shelf? I don’t know.” What do I care if a book or

  computer disk is out of place? What’s missing from my life right now is decidedly bigger. “Why?”

  “Just curious. It’s dusty.”

  “You know where I keep the furniture polish.” I don’t even

  fake courtesy these days, which draws a frown and narrowed eyes from Frank.

  Like a toddler forced to apologize to a sibling, I mutter,

  “Sorry,” and return to the limp suds in the sink.

  Jen rattles on. “The space is about eight inches wide, but

  only the outer inch along each side is dusty. Something usually occupies that spot, but it’s gone.”

  I mentally trek back to the office and scan my memory

  for an image of how that room looks in its normal state. Greg’s meticulous about his workspace. Not regarding dust, but clutter. Says he can’t focus in chaos. Maybe that explains why our marriage isn’t working. The chaos of unmet needs over- whelms him, so he checks out. But the unmet needs are mine, not his.

  For the most part.

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  The office is Greg’s personal space. I haven’t crossed that threshold except out of necessity in a long time. “Coffee, Frank?” I’m already pouring.

  “Thanks. None of that flavored garbage, is it?”

  “Mr. Holden, you’re no hazelnut fan?” Jenika probably knows the answer to that, but I’m grateful she’s shouldering the load of conversation.

  “Me?” he asks, sniffing the brew I hand him. “Give me full octane, please. Nothing fancy.” He slurps a scalding mouthful, then smacks. “Ah. Now, this is the real thing.”

  “It’s decaf.” Why did I insist on interjecting that unimport- ant piece of information? I know what his response will be. “Get me a bucket! I’m about to spew!” The family drama king strikes again. He doubles over and holds his hand over his puff-cheeked mouth. Corny can be endearing sometimes. I can see Jen struggling to suppress a laugh. She glances my way as if seeking permission to let it out, as if the circum- stances demand she obtain a warrant before smiling or enjoying a joke. I appreciate Jen’s thoughtfulness, but I am far from the boss of this situation.

  “Libby, I’ve been thinking,” Frank begins, after growing up about fifty years.

  “What’s that, Frank?”

  “I’d like to take a look around the Quetico for myself.” I catch Jen’s facial expression. Is she surprised he suggested it or surprised all three of us considered the same insane chess move?

  Frank shrugs. “Maybe I wouldn’t find anything that would make us any smarter than we already are about Greg’s disappearance.”

  No smarter? We’re in the negative column at the moment.

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  “Then again, maybe I’ll see something others overlooked.

  Or find my boy.” He clears his throat. Sniffs. Sends his gaze and his private thoughts out the window.

  Is his pain greater than mine? Is that possible? He lost some-

  one he’s loved longer than I’ve known him. I lost someone I contemplated leaving.

  Greg hasn’t always thought in sync with his dad, especially

  not on faith issues. But Greg managed to respect him all these years. That’s impressive, now that I think about it.

  My boy. Frank still calls him my boy. At his age.

  Have you asked my boy if he’s going golfing with me on

  Saturday?

  Is my boy home?

  I was thinking about taking my boy to the stock-car races this

  weekend.

  Greg almost always says yes. I wonder if he ever told Frank

  how much he dislikes stock-car races.

  ********

  Halfway down the hall to Greg’s office, I stop, lean against

  the wall, and press a thumb and forefinger to either side of the bridge of my nose. Will this be the setting for my total collapse?

  I’m lost. In some ways, more lost than Greg is at the

  moment.

  It’s not that I haven’t paid any attention all these years. Just

  not enough. Is it ever enough?

  I know Greg made lists, computerized printouts of his

  menu ideas for wilderness living. Every time a new prod- uct appeared on the shelves at Greene’s, he analyzed it for wilderness-worthiness—ease of cooking, minmum of addi- tional ingredients required, not a lot of bulk to add to the

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  weight of his pack, and proper packaging. No glass or cans allowed in the Quetico region, according to Greg. So any dried, dehydrated, or envelope-packaged product became a candidate for the menu plan of a guy with a pioneer spirit toward both canoe and frying pan.

  Entering Greg’s office feels like walking into a morgue to identify a body. The room is a lifeless shell lying on a metal gurney. Is this him? Is this your husband? the air asks.

  It’s a bright day. Despite the natural light, I flip on the ceiling fixture and desk lamp, chasing out the morgue references. Where are Greg’s lists of equipment and other supplies? Didn’t he always carry around a clipboard and check off items in the weeks before his trips? Sleeping bag, camp stove, candle lantern, ground cloth, matches, iodine water tablets—which in recent years he exchanged for a fil
tration system—reading material for rain days, tent, extra stakes, toilet paper, paddles, life vests, tackle box, flashlight . . .

  Knowing him, I imagine the list alphabetized. But I can’t imagine where he kept it. Keeps it.

  We need that list. Yes, we. Frank lost the battle to insist Jen and I stay here. After explaining that Alex and Zack—the natural choices—will be out of reach for at least another week or more and that Brent’s job situation is too tenuous at the moment to risk leaving, we watched Frank’s resistance sud- denly give way, as if we were arm wrestling and he let us win at the last second, his arm and arguments slammed to the table. I swivel Greg’s high-backed office chair until it faces me and allows me to lower myself into it. It seems an act of intimacy I’m not prepared to process. I force myself to relax into the fabric as if lowering myself slowly into a Jacuzzi that promises comfort but requires a few moments of acclimation.

  Frank’s at his house, informing my mother-in-law he’s about to haul two inexperienced, outdoors-challenged women miles

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  away from civilization and indoor plumbing for the purpose of a north-of-the-border Canadian wild goose chase. She’ll flip. Then she’ll call me and demand I talk him out of it. “You can’t let him do this, Libby.”

  “Pauline, I obviously have no control over my own husband,

  much less yours.”

  “Yes, well, you don’t have to feed his harebrained ideas.”

  “Greg is your son. Aren’t you as worried as we are? Don’t you

  have half a mind to join us?”

  She’ll pause a moment and say the words that will remind

  me why we’ve never grown close. “Stepson, Libby. He’s my stepson.”

  Right.

  A stepson who’s been a part of your life since he was a tod-

  dler. And you still can’t look at him as anything but a foreigner to you, a young man who belongs to your husband—his boy— but not to you.

  Oh, Greg! Did you finally find a woman who would embrace

  you with her whole heart, nothing held back? You don’t have a great track record for that, do you?

  I don’t want Pauline’s caustic, cold voice—liquid nitro-

  gen—talking us out of searching for him, or reminding me of myself.

  If Jen and I find that list, maybe we can get on the road

  before Pauline dials the phone.

  I pull open a file cabinet drawer.

  Not having Zack and Alex here at Search Central is wrong

  on so many levels. When they find out what’s happened and realize that while they were dancing on mountaintops—as happy as little boys with a new tree fort—their father was in trouble and their mother planned to join him, they’ll freak.

  If they were here, they could use their techno-machetes to

  hack into Greg’s laptop for me. Maybe he told them his pass-

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  word. I’m not privileged to that information. As it is, I hope Greg left a paper trail.

  “Any progress?” Jen asks, entering the office with more energy than ought to be legal. She presses an apple into my hand. She’s more my mother than the woman who gave birth to me. What is it about the matriarchs in our lives? Great role models.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Did you look in here?” She pulls open the top drawer of the four-tiered filing cabinet next to Greg’s desk. “Whoa!”

  The color-coordinated, carefully labeled folders—as tidy and symmetrical as rake marks in a Japanese garden—can’t help but impress.

  “Tried the top drawer already,” I tell her. “All work related. Second drawer is too. Third is household stuff. Maintenance records. Receipts. Bank statements.”

  She reaches for the handle as she asks, “What’s in the fourth?”

  “It’s marked ‘Personal.’ ”

  “You don’t think that at a time like this, rules of cour- tesy might need to be jettisoned in favor of finding your husband?”

  My thoughts exactly. That’s not what keeps me from open- ing that drawer. Searching in vain for words to explain what I most fear discovering, I feign interest in a stray piece of paper from Greg’s in-basket. “You can look if you want.”

  Jen moves quickly, punctuating her search with a pepper- ing of “hmm” and “aha” and “well, isn’t that interesting?” How can I not respond? “What’s so interesting?”

  “Looks as if he’s kept every card or note you’ve ever written him.”

  “He did not. He’s not into cards.”

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  Jen pulls a bulging folder from the bottom file drawer. “Then

  what do you call this?”

  Does it surprise me that the cards are chronologically orga-

  nized? No. It surprises me that he kept them.

  Touching them lightly, as would a detective sifting carefully

  through the ashes of a burnt-out home, I glance through a few cards, fighting that familiar constriction in my throat.

  “This isn’t . . . helping,” I say. “We’re looking for his equip-

  ment list. And clues.”

  “You don’t think these are clues, Libby?” Her voice drips

  with meaning.

  I close the folder and aim to slide it back into the drawer,

  reaching in front of my friend like an uncouth uncle at a fam- ily dinner.

  “Try that one.” I point to a folder marked “Canadian

  Adventures.”

  “I was getting to it.” Jen springs to her feet, folder in hand,

  without the groans customary to my rising from a squatting position. A few seconds into the folder’s contents, she says, “This is great stuff.”

  “What? Did you find it? The supplies list?”

  “No.” Her voice barely registers on my internal decibel

  meter.

  With thoughts of Pauline’s idea-squelching voice in my ear,

  I let my exasperation show. “Jen, will you please focus? We don’t have much time. We’re looking for—”

  “This could be genuinely helpful,” she says, refusing to mir-

  ror the edge in my voice.

  “What is it?”

  “Greg’s journals.”

  “He kept a diary?”

  “His trip journals,” she said, flipping through pages of a

  pocket-sized spiral memo pad. “These are rich.”

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  I grab the little book out of her hands and toss it onto the desk. I’ll probably have to apologize later for my roughness. Right now, I’m driven to get our vehicle and canoes pointed north.

  “Jenika, find me that list or get out of the way.” She purses her lips.

  “Sorry,” I tell her. “It’s that important.”

  She stares me down, but her facial features soften like a stick of butter on the kitchen counter in July. Turning back to the bottom drawer, she pulls out the next folder, opens it, and slaps it on the desktop.

  “There.”

  The list.

  Ten or twelve photocopies of it. As if he had more trips in mind for the future.

  Was this the work of a man who planned to leave home? I grab one copy and bolt for the door. We have work to do. After two steps into the hall, I stop and retrace my steps. Wrapping my fingers around the spiral notebook, I yank it off the desk and motion for Jen to follow me. We are, after all, in this together.

  ********

  Between Greg’s, Frank’s, and Brent’s garage and basement stashes, we round up enough equipment for the three of us. How many times did I throw a frown or snide comment Greg’s way because he wanted to purchase a second cooking stove or a better-quality sleeping bag? Now I’m grateful for the excesses. Brent’s kelly green canoe hasn’t been road- or water-tested yet. I find it remarkable he’s willing to let us take it on its maiden voyage. Maybe
Frank will use that one, and we women will commandeer Frank’s banged-up, dented tin can with

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  pointy ends. An echo of Greg’s complaints about how heavy it was to haul it—much less all their supplies and equipment— over the portages when he was a kid makes my back ache.

  It finally hits me what I’m about to do. Portaging over

  rugged trails that connect one navigable stretch of water to another. Canoeing. Sleeping under the stars. Drinking water with pine needles and microscopic who-knows-what floating in it. Using a log for a toilet seat.

  I am in so much trouble.

  Frank insists we take fishing equipment—not for pleasure,

  but for survival. The word survival scares me. It’s hard not knowing exactly how long we’ll be gone. We’ve told our loved ones no more than a week. Jen says she has an appointment a week from Tuesday that would be tough to reschedule. It’s quite a lot already asking her to leave her girls for as long as we’ll be gone. And Brent. What a guy!

  Pauline laid down the law for Frank. She is not going to miss

  their vacation to Branson over Labor Day weekend, whether we know anything about Greg by then or not. Sweet woman. The other couples sharing the RV with Frank and Pauline are depending on their third of the rent for the unit and their third of the gas money.

  Give or take a day, we three have one week to conduct our

  search. I can’t dwell too long on the idea that finding anything more than a corpse would be a miracle after this much time anyway.

  So, we have a week. We grab loaves of bread, Ziploc bags

  stuffed with peanut butter, sticks of summer sausage, pancake mix, slab bacon, string cheese, boxes of hash brown potatoes. We have no way of knowing if it’ll be enough, or if we’ll find a stranded man who’ll be grateful for a crumb of our leftovers.

  “We need the freedom to supplement with fish,” Frank

  says.

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  I can see it now. Three adventurers, our pant legs rolled up Huck Finn style, watching fat little red and white bobbers dance on the waters of a crystal clear lake. The sun is in our faces. Frank’s chewing on a piece of straw that he got from— where? Jen and I are hoping we catch something edible without having to impale another worm on a hook or han- dle one of those slimy artificial nightcrawlers Greg claims are lunker killers.